Insanity plea rejected for ‘frenzied’ knife attacker
A 37-YEAR-OLD woman has been found guilty of attempting to murder a civil servant by slashing her neck as she walked home from work.
Laura Kenna had argued that she was legally insane at the time she attacked Fionnuala Burke and had experienced delusions about death, vampires and cannibalism.
Kenna admitted to gardaí: ‘I sliced her like you would a goat.’
The trial heard that Ms Burke was working for the Department of Social Protection, and was walking home when she noticed a woman sitting on a wall outside a house. As Ms Burke approached, the woman, Laura Kenna, sprang up and pushed her back onto a grassy area. Kenna didn’t say anything, but started to stab her.
Ms Burke felt the short stab wounds and could also feel her face being slashed, before she felt a dramatic slash straight across her neck. Kenna then spoke, telling Ms Burke that she would let her go if she handed over her bag.
The jury saw photographs of the large, deep cut across Ms Burke’s neck. It had penetrated muscle and cut through the thyroid gland. She was operated on and treated in intensive care after the attack. She also had other injuries to her face and body.
The main issue for the jury to consider was Kenna’s state of mind at the time; there was a conflict of opinion between the experts on this issue.
A consultant psychiatrist engaged by the defence testified that the accused was suffering from a mental disorder at the time, and so was entitled to the special defence of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Dr Stephen Monks of the Central Mental Hospital told the jury that she was suffering from schizoaffective disorder, a chronic mental illness related to schizophrenia.
He said she had carried out the ‘frenzied and vicious’ attack on Ms Burke with the intention of killing in the context of delusions about death, vampires and cannibalism. She had a knife for the purpose of killing somebody, he added. He testified that she did not know the nature and quality of her actions and couldn’t stop what she was doing.
However, a consultant psychiatrist engaged by the State disagreed. Professor Harry Kennedy, also of the CMH, testified that she was not delusional at the time, but carried out the attack in anger and out of a ‘sense of entitlement’ and had told gardaí she’d needed money.
Prof. Kennedy said her attack would not come under the definition of insanity. He said that she possessed ‘callous’ and ‘unemotional’ personality traits and had the ability to ‘fabricate for her own interests’.
She had told him that she had followed another woman that night ‘but let her go’, indicating, he said, that she knew what she was doing in selecting her victim.
Kenna, of no fixed abode, was charged with attempting to murder Ms Burke on Lower Drumcondra Road in the city on January 3, 2017, and of assault causing serious harm to her on the same occasion. She had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to both counts and went on trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Justice Tara Burns sent the six men and six women of the jury out to begin considering their verdict on Monday afternoon. They had spent a total of two hours and 23 minutes deliberating before reaching their unanimous verdict of guilty on both counts.
Justice Burns said she was extremely grateful to them for their work on what had been ‘a particularly difficult case’ and exempted from jury service for ten years.
She adjourned sentencing until March 25 for preparation of a victim impact statement. She also directed a report from Kenna’s treating doctor.
‘Sense of entitlement’